It has become commonplace for those who listen to electronically output audio to employ headphones or headsets to do so, and it has become commonplace to provide users of those headphones and headsets with at least two audio channels of audio through those headphones or headsets, such as stereo left and right channels separately provided to each ear. Further, recent developments in digital signal processing (DSP) technology have also made possible the introduction of various forms of surround sound involving the output of multiple audio channels and the introduction of various forms of noise cancellation to those headphones and headsets to mask ambient noises.
Yet, despite these many advances in audio output functionality, user controls provided to control the operation of those headphones and headsets remain cumbersome. More specifically, it has become commonplace to provide various manually-operable controls on headphones and headsets, themselves, to turn them on or off, and to control various aspects of audio output. However, the need to keep headphones and headsets relatively small and light so that they are comfortable to use has often resulted in manually-operable controls that are too small for comfortable operation or that are hard to locate solely by the touch of a listener's fingers.
This less than user-friendly nature of these controls has often lead to users of those headphones and headsets simply removing one or both earcups or earbuds (earbuds otherwise being known as “in-ear” headphones) from their ears without bothering to either turn off those headphones or headsets or otherwise operate one or more of the controls to adjust or cease audio output. This often means that users choose to allow batteries within headphones and headsets to be drained, because finding the on/off switch is simply too cumbersome. Similarly, this often means that users of headphones or headsets where one or the other of the pair of earcups or earbuds are movable away from one or the other of the user's ears for one-ear operation are often operated by those users in a manner where they choose to forego listening to one or more audio channels that were directed to the ear from which the earcup or earbud has been moved, because finding a control (or taking other action) that might redirect those unheard audio channels to the other ear is similarly too cumbersome.
Further, little effort has been made by purveyors of audio sources providing the audio to be output by those headphones and headsets to provide some way for a user of those headphones or headsets to quickly or easily control the on/off state of those audio sources or to control various aspects of how those audio sources interact with those headphones or headsets. More specifically, little effort has been made to provide a way to quickly or easily control the provision of audio channels to one ear or the other in instances where a user switches between using both earcups or earbuds of those headphones and headsets to using only one or the other the two earcups or earbuds. It is not uncommon for those listening to music amidst a busy environment to take one or both earbuds of a pair of earbuds out of their ears to answer a telephone call or momentarily concentrate their attention on a given task. It is also not uncommon for radio operators, airplane pilots and disk jockeys to momentarily move or turn an earcup of a pair of headphones or of a headset away from one ear to give part of their attention to a sound in their local environment or to engage in a momentary conversation with another person beside them.